“Goodbye Raila”, a new documentary from BBC World Service’s award-winning investigative unit, BBC Africa Eye, uncovers new evidence about the events which led to a series of fatal shootings at Nairobi’s Kasarani Stadium during a national farewell to former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Kenya’s longest-serving opposition leader and one of the country’s most influential political figures, Raila Odinga died on 15 October 2025 while receiving medical treatment in India. The following day, huge crowds of Odinga supporters gathered at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Mourners flooded the runway.
Raila Odinga’s body was originally due to lie in state at the Kenyan Parliament. However, the scale of the crowds and fears of a security breach forced a last-minute change of venue to Nairobi’s Kasarani Stadium. Officials had little time to secure the 48,000-capacity venue, and thousands spilt onto the pitch and into the stands unchecked.
After several hours of waiting in the afternoon heat, with no functioning public address system for official updates, frustrations grew. A small section of the crowd clashed with security personnel near the VIP pavilion – footage from elsewhere in the stadium shows the crowds remained largely peaceful. Moments later, police opened fire inside the stadium. Three men, all fathers – Vincent Ogutu, Jidah Burka and Evans Kiche – were killed. Many others were injured.
BBC Africa Eye has spent months piecing together what happened at Kasarani Stadium, asking how a national farewell ended in bloodshed. To reconstruct the events of that day and establish the location of those killed in the stadium, the BBC went through more than 1,500 photos and videos, analysed the post-mortem evidence – and spoke to some of the victims’ relatives.
The BBC investigation finds that the three men who were shot dead were far from the confrontation. BBC Africa Eye traces the members of a VIP police protection unit who fired their guns inside the stadium and identifies that the shooting may have come from an elite police unit responsible for presidential protection. Their uniforms and movements are consistent with a layer of security assigned to President William Ruto and other VIPs before and after the shooting.
At least three officers of this unit appear to have fired their weapons. The BBC identified one of these officers as part of an elite police unit responsible for presidential protection. The BBC cannot establish which bullets killed each victim and cannot rule out other officers firing inside the stadium.
Kenya’s police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), is investigating the deaths and police response. Yet one year on, no findings have been made public, and no one has been held to account. The IPOA did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
Kenya’s National Police Service told the BBC that “there are huge lessons picked from the day’s events” which had “formed a fundamental learning curve for a better, more professional application in the future”.
The BBC Africa Eye documentary “Goodbye Raila” is available in the UK on BBC iPlayer. Outside of the UK, audiences can watch it on the BBC News Africa YouTube channel.
